Note 1707 — Chapter VIII · FINAL SHAPE OF THE TORTURE SYSTEM.
Reading edition
Quoted by Nicolas, Diss. Mor. et Jurid. sur la Torture, p. 21. This mode of torture consisted in placing the accused between two jailers, who pummelled him whenever he began to doze, and thus, with proper relays, deprived him of sleep for forty hours. Its inventor considered it humane, as it endangered neither life nor limb, but the extremity of suffering to which it reduced the prisoner is shown by its efficaciousness.
Marsigli received much credit for this ingenious invention. Grillandus informs us that he experimented with it in a difficult case of two monks “et profecto vidi ea quæ prius non credebam, quod illud affert maximum tormentum et fastidium in corpore absque aliqua membrorum læsione.”—Grillandi de Quæstione et Tortura Art. ii.
I have purposely abstained from entering into the details of the various forms of torture. They may be interesting to the antiquarian, but they illustrate no principle, and little would be gained by describing these melancholy monuments of human error. Those who may be curious in such matters will find ample material in Grupen Observat. Jur. Crim. de Applicat. Torment., 4to., Hanov. 1754; Zangeri op. cit. cap. IV. Nos. 9, 10; Hieron. Magius de Equuleo cum Appendd. Amstelod. 1664, etc. According to Bernhardi, Johann Graefe enumerates no less than six hundred different instruments invented for the purpose. Damhouder (op. cit. cap. xxxvii. Nos. 17-23) declares that torture can legally be inflicted only with ropes, and then proceeds to describe a number of ingenious devices. One of these, which he states to produce insufferable torment without risk, is bathing the feet with brine and then setting a goat to lick the soles.
The strappado, or suspension by the arms behind the back with weights to the feet, was the torture in most general use and most favored by legal experts.—Grillandus, loc. cit.